Page 54 of Dragons' Future

“I want to,” Tavias told him. A corner of his mouth lifted. “Plus, after all the horseshit you put me through, I deserve to. Just to be sure you don’t try to stick the bloody crown back on my head.”

Cyril snorted softly, but nodded.

Hauck grinned. “I am yours to command, my liege.”

“Not sure if that one is an honor or a liability,” Tavias muttered under his breath.

“Liability. For sure,” said Hauck.

“I am yours to command,” Quinton’s voice from Cyril’s other side made even Hauck jerk. Quinton paused a moment before adding, “My liege.”

Well, wasn’t that something.

“Should I—” Kit started.

“- No,” Cyril said quickly. “You are my mate. Our mate.”

“And the dragon queen,” Hauck interjected—both because it was true, and because it ruffled Kitterny deliciously. “So you deserve your own oath. But that one should be sworn with a great deal more pomp and circumstance. And wine.”

Kit’s eyes widened. “We aren’t really doing that, right?” she asked Cyril. “That’s not happening?”

“Don’t borrow tomorrow’s worries early.” Cyril raised his head to the wind and moved toward the lip of the ledge they occupied, his chest rising and falling with deep steady breaths. “Tonight, we fly to take back the Massa’eve thone.”

CHAPTER 31

Autumn

“Hello Emric,” Autumn said, picking her way between the woven branches of a crude shelter the males had constructed for the prisoner. Despite his lack of hands, the priest was secured to a tree trunk with a chain the industrious males had found somewhere. Another chain formed a slip collar around his neck, the kind that tightened if he pulled too hard.

“Mage.” The priest glared, his bloodshot eyes filled with hatred.

She wrinkled her nose. The human—if Emric could be called that with the stolen magic corrupting his body—stank. Unfortunately for him, none of the stench originated from his wounds. The stumps appeared healthy and well bandaged. No easy death coming for him.

"Why are you back?" Emric demanded. “I thought the scale-cunt and princeling flew off already.”

Autumn settled onto an overturned log she’d been using as a bench these past days, and brushed her finger over the bright orange mushrooms that were growing along it. “Oh, they did.”

“Then why are you here?”

“You are as pleasant as always I see.” Autumn plucked one of the mushrooms and twisted it in her fingers. Chicken of the woods. Delicious when fried correctly. And a reminder of new things that grow from decay. “It confounds me why you aren’t more glad to have a visitor. This place must get utterly boring."

"A follower of Orion is never alone," said Emric.

"Well, there is that." Autumn shrugged. “In answer to your question though, I am a scholar. And we’ve been so very busy dealing with practical matters these past days, that I never got to ask the questions truly holding me captive.” She smiled. “Forgive the pun.”

Emric jerked involuntarily at the word question and looked around.

“It’s just us today,” Autumn said lightly. “If you are smart—and I think both of us know you are—that alone should make you nervous.”

Emric snorted. “You think I fear a female who barely reaches my shoulder?”

Autumn extended her hand, letting a single strand of magic extend to the first of the constellation tattoos on the side of Emric’s head. The one she was almost certain she understood. She knew she was right the moment her magic touched the priest’s rune, and a surge of power thundered back along the connection. Autumn gasped.

Emric screamed.

“Now that we’ve resolved the problem of my reach, can we continue on?” Autumn asked.

“What do you want to know now?” he snarled. “There is nothing else of use to your precious dragons that can be harnessed without decades of study and dedication.”

---